Sometimes, to make things happen, we need to go out on our own, to fly solo, and realise our inner vision. In this episode of Pantisocracy host Panti Bliss is with three people who did just that; musician and singer David Geraghty, theatre director and founder of Anu Productions, Louise Lowe, and queer, autistic novelist Naoise Dolan who is creating quite a stir with her debut work ‘Exciting Times’. David Geraghty, a founder member with the band BellX1, created a solo, alter identity, some...

What does it take to become the person you are born to be? In this episode of Pantisocracy host Panti Bliss meets five people who share their stories of becoming ‘at home’ in their own skin. Joining Panti Bliss are writer and wheelchair user Louise Bruton, poet Nidhi Zak/Aria Eipe, minimalist composer Úna Keane, transgender activist Noah Halpin and singer Melina Malone who all share moments of intense change and transformation in their lives.  Both Úna Keane and Melina Malone perform from...

#Pantisocracy Season 5 Episode 3 ‘When Things Fall Apart’ What do you do when everything falls apart, and your best laid plans collapse in the eye of a global storm? In this episode of Pantisocracy host Panti Bliss is with three people, photographer Ruth Medjber, novelist Gavin McCrea and singer/songwriter Emma Langford, who each had to answer that question and reinvent their work and world during the pandemic. For Ruth Medjber, 2020 was meant to be a globe trotting series of music tours,...

Season 5 Episode 2 ‘Breaking Secrets and Silence’ What happens when your private family story, your deepest secret, is also a national secret of shame and silence? Caelainn Hogan, author of the ground-breaking ‘Republic of Shame’ is the guest of Panti Bliss in this episode and she’s joined by singer Jess Kavanagh, whose mum was born, black Irish, in a mother and baby home, and film-maker Paul Duane, who was himself born in Sean Ross Abbey, the home depicted in the film ‘Philomena’. Jess...

'The Big Pause' Pantisocracy S5 E1 Host Panti Bliss is back with Pantisocracy and in Season 5 after the covid19 long lockdown she's meeting three guests who had their dream projects stalled by what we're calling 'The Big Pause'. Panti meets writer Mark O'Connell, 'Notes from an Apocalyse' novelist Cauvery Madhaven 'The Tainted' and singer and actor Lisa Lambe. In this audio you hear Lisa singing a song she wrote inspired by a short story by the Irish writer Mary Lavin 'One Drop of...

Pantisocracy with Panti Bliss is back for Season 5, starting July 9th RTÉ Radio 1 10pm for seven weeks. catch it on the radio or on a podcast platform where you find your favourite podcasts. For more go to www.pantisocracy.ie

Today just about everything in our daily lives, from banking to dating, from getting a pizza to watching porn, has shifted online, and often happens in our always on smart phone. So how is it changing us? In this episode of Pantisocracy Panti Bliss is joined by the American-Syrian podcaster/philosopher Conner Habib, who gave up academia to become a gay porn actor, but who has now moved to Ireland to complete a PhD on things like fairy lore and ghosts. With them in the parlour is Dubliner...

A conversation of sisterhood and three generations of feminism In this episode of Pantisocracy with host Panti Bliss. Panti is joined by the acclaimed Galway poet Elaine Feeney, who is now working with the oral history project around the Tuam Babies story. With them in the parlour are two outstanding performers, Emma Garnett aka Fehdah, an afro-Irish singer who mixes her passion for music with astro-physics, and Nina Hynes, a Dubliner living in Berlin for over a decade now, who mixes her own...

In this episode of the ‘cabaret of conversations’ host Panti Bliss is joined by artists who have found freedom in their art and work and those who have a sense of understanding Maya Angelou’s meaning ‘I Know why the caged bird sings’. Meet visual artist Mary Duffy who is a thalidomide survivor and paints, and gardens, with her feet. Her work is beautiful, evocative and life-affirming, capturing the colours and the coastal landscape of where she lives. With her in studio is Steo Wall a man who...

What is belonging and when do we feel it? In this episode of Pantisocracy Panti Bliss is talking nationality and identity. Is it nature or nurture, DNA or destiny? Guests with the Queen of Ireland are Erin Fornoff, an American in Dublin, Irish by choice, who has crafted her gift for razor sharp, spoken word here and the singer songwriter Declan O’Rourke who reaches into both national and family history to tell song stories drawn from the famine and migration. Joining them in the parlour is...

The Irish are all over the world, ‘the diaspora’ as Mary Robinson named it, and often creating waves where ever they go. In this episode of Pantisocracy host Panti Bliss is inviting folk who have a foot in two places like acclaimed sean nós singer Iarla Ó Lionáird, of the group The Gloaming, who spends his life now between Princeton University, in the United States and his home and family in Inistioge, County Kilkenny. With him is comedy writer (8 out of 10 Cats) and actor Brona C. Titley,...

So we Irish are not known for our openness about sex and sexuality so in this season of Pantisocracy we’re bringing a little spotlight to sex and the Irish or everything you ever wanted to know about sex and the Irish but were afraid to ask! In this episode of Pantisocracy host Panti Bliss is talking birds & bees, sex education and how we learn about sex and sexuality, consent and coercion, desire and intimacy. As the child of a rural vet Panti got the basic biology lesson early on but...

S4 E2 – The Past is Not Dead, It’s Not Even Past In this episode of the ‘cabaret of conversations’ host Panti Bliss is joined by Belfast writer Wendy Erskine, author of an acclaimed new collection of stories from a fractured post ‘peace’ Northern Ireland and a young filmmaker Sinead O’Shea whose documentary ‘A Mother Brings her Son to Be Shot’ highlights some of those fractures in the underbelly of Derry suburbs. With them is Dean Van Nguyen, an emerging voice on Irish culture, whose father...

Pantisocracy S4 E1: The Writing on the Wall  - a bonus cut with full length recording of the show In this the first episode of Pantisocracy Season 4 host Panti Bliss is joined by two extraordinary visual artists, Joe Caslin and Maser, who both, in very different ways, use the street as their canvas and their art for social change. With them is documentary filmmaker Aoife Kelleher whose film ‘One Million Dubliners’ changed public minds and hearts about Glasnevin Cemetery and whose recent...

Season 4 of Pantisocracy starts July 16th S4 E1 Title : The Writing on the Wall In this the first episode of Pantisocracy Season 4, host Panti Bliss is joined by two extraordinary visual artists, Joe Caslin and Maser, who both, in very different ways, use the street as their canvas and their art for social change. With them is documentary filmmaker Aoife Kelleher whose film ‘One Million Dubliners’ changed public minds and hearts about Glasnevin Cemetery and whose recent work takes us inside...

Pantisocracy Season 3 Episode 10 ‘Ties That Bind’ Guests with Panti Bliss in this episode are the bands Ships, Tebi Rex, performer Felispeaks and singer Inni-K. Relationships, both family and friendship, are at the heart of the conversation in this episode of Pantisocracy and the ‘cabaret of conversations’. Panti Bliss talks of her own ties that bind and her guests include Sorca McGrath of the Choice Music Prize winning band Ships with her partner Simon Cullen, as well as Maynooth hip hop...

Pantisocracy Season 3 Episode 9 ‘Taking a Stand’ In the parlour with host Panti Bliss are Saoirse Long, Caitriona Bergin, Frank Berry and Lisa Hannigan. Sometimes, despite the personal cost, you have to take a stand. In this episode of Pantisocracy, our host Panti Bliss, who has herself been known to take a stand or two, shares her story of how what she thought was a small talk in the Abbey Theatre, the Noble Call, became a viral call of action and change. In this episode Panti’s guests are...

Pantisocracy season 3 2018 Episode 8 ‘Borders’ In this ‘cabaret of conversations’ Panti Bliss explores borders, both physical and psychological - what divides us and what brings us together? And can art be more powerful than politics in mapping and crossing borders? Guests are the visual artist Rita Duffy and musician/writer Steafán Hanvey both from Northern Ireland although Hanvey is now settled in Finland. With them is Gemma Doherty, from Derry, and Morgan MacIntyre, from Belfast, the two...

Pantisocracy Season 3 2018 Episode 7 ‘Room at the Table’ In this episode of the ‘cabaret of conversations’ called ‘Room at the Table’ host Panti Bliss’s guests are architect Grainne Hassett, singers Susie Q and Síomha, actor/writer Stephen Jones, and visual artist Vukasin Nedeljković. In this show Panti hosts a conversation around what makes a more open society. Vukasin Nedeljković shares his journey, from war in the Balkans to making a life here by turning his experience as an asylum...

‘Legally Gay’ Pantisocracy Season 3 2018 Episode 6 25 years after Ireland decriminalised homosexuality Panti Bliss celebrates in a show called 'Legally Gay' and explores how Ireland stepped out of the closet. Guests include singer/songwriter Jack O’Rourke, gay rights archivist Tonie Walsh, HIV advocate Robbie Lawlor, grassroots activist Izzy Kamikaze and spoken word performer Vickey Curtis. Jack O’Rourke performs his songs ‘Shining For You’ and his new single ‘Myth, along with a powerful...

Panti Bliss’s guests in this episode of Pantisocracy are the next generation; young emerging voices shaping Ireland today and pushing for change. In the parlour with Panti are actor/singer Fionnuala Gygax, Raidió na Life DJ Ola Majekodunmi, poet and visual artist Kerrie O’Brien, rapper JYellowL and transgender activist Sam Blanckensee. JYellowL performs his songs Nuh fi hurt me and Cold in the Summer while Kerrie performs her poem Dublin, which is now on the Junior Certificate, and Fionnuala...

‘Finding Your Tribe’ Pantisocracy Season 3 2018 Episode 4 Panti Bliss’s house guests for this episode of Pantisocracy, the cabaret of conversations, are singer Honor Heffernan and her partner, composer Trevor Knight, who perform songs from their show The Whistling Girl based on the writing of the American satirist Dorothy Parker. They are joined by comedian Katherine Lynch and Bohemian FC poet in residence Lewis Kenny. Lewis performs his darkly powerful poem Cabra. The Panti Monologue shares...

Pantisocracy - Season 3 (2018) Episode 3 ‘Be the Change’ In this episode of Pantisocracy host Panti Bliss shares her own experience of being HIV Positive and her work as a change advocate with Irish Aid in Asia and Africa. Her guests in the parlour are all change-makers making a positive difference in the world. On the story of HIV AIDS in Ireland there's Dr Fiona Mulcahy and young playwright Shaun Dunne. With them is asylum seeker Ellie Kisyombe of Our Table and Iseult Ward cofounder of the...

Pantisocracy - Season 3 (2018) Episode 2 ‘The Elephants in the Room’ In this the second episode of a new 10 part Summer Season of Pantisocracy, the cabaret of conversations, host Panti Bliss meets writer Michael Harding, actor and singer Ruth McGill, aerial performer Ronan Brady, playwright Amy Conroy and poet Jessica Traynor in an episode called 'The Elephants in the Room'. Panti Bliss kicks off with a moving and dark memory of her time in boarding school while Ruth performs two of her own...

AWESOME MNÁ In an emotional show recorded just after the historic vote in the abortion referendum on May 25th Singers Karan Casey and Ciara Sidine join host Panti Bliss in an episode entitled ‘Awesome Mná’ exploring the voice of women in Ireland; the stories they tell and the songs they sing. Casey, an outstanding traditional and folk singer, kicked off the gender equality in music initiative Fair Plé earlier this year while Ciara Sidine’s work includes a powerful song in tribute to the...